The blind have long sought new devices to assist in their daily activities. The ubiquitous cane has been the standard mobility tool for the blind for centuries. The advantages of the cane are offset by the disadvantages of its physical nature and reach. Scanning for objects and people can be slow and cumbersome due to the care a user must take when searching with a long physical stick. Other tools to convey environmental ranging information to the blind typically employ a variety of vibration systems, which have little sense of absolute position and are inherently numbing to the user's skin. The ideal system for ranging should utilize non-contact detection and employ a reasonably precise feedback system that is suited for long term use. Such an ideal system should provide the user with information about the composition of what it is pointed at, address indication of distance from user to target, and be useful for identification of edge parameters.